Paying Through The Nose For Chance To See Fenway Clincher

BOSTON — — They paid for their chance to see history. Oh, they paid plenty. Somebody's not going on vacation to Aruba next year. Some kid's college fund just went up in smoke.

Watch the Red Sox capture their first world championship at Fenway Park since 1918 in person? Evidently some fans were willing to pay the equivalent of the gross national product of Azerbaijan in 1918 for that opportunity.

On Tuesday morning, the average list price on the secondary market for a ticket to World Series Game 6 was $1,860, according to a tweet by TiqIQ, a ticket tracking company. The number rose to $2,055 early Wednesday and then to $2,399 hours later.

As a matter of comparison the average resale price of Super Bowl tickets in February was reportedly $2,200.

"There are a lot of people with a lot of money willing to spend," Red Sox manager John Farrell said. "From a historic perspective, when you consider that an event like this hasn't been here in a couple of generations, possibly. There are a lot of people that are willing to take some extra cash and try to be a part of it."

Well, let's hope everybody has that kind of disposable income, because somebody paid $24,000 for two tickets to Game 6 on StubHub.com. Otherwise somebody's mortgage isn't being paid in November. Santa's not coming to somebody's house on Christmas Eve.

"The World Series is always one of our biggest events of the year, but tonight's game is showing huge demand," emailed Shannon Barbara, public relations coordinator for StubHub. "I'm sure that's because the Red Sox haven't had a chance to win the World Series at home since 1918. When the element of travel is removed [airfare, hotel costs], die-hard fans are willing to go above and beyond to see their team win, and that's the case in Boston."

Many people in Connecticut don't realize it, but StubHub, the online ticket marketplace, based in San Francisco and owned by eBay, had as of April grown to 260 people at its East Granby operations center.

According to Barbara, buyers for Game 6 tickets have purchased them from all 50 states, with the majority of them from Massachusetts, New York and California. This was StubHub's most popular event on its site by far Wednesday, followed closely by a potential Game 7, approaching record-breaking numbers.

Barbara confirmed the highest price paid on StubHub, which has a ticket pick-up location close to Fenway, was for a pair of Game 6 tickets at $12,000 each for front-row seats located between the plate and on-deck circles.

That's some scary cash, folks.

Upward of 10,000 tickets evidently were sold on StubHub for Game 6 at an average price of $1,142.

When the Red Sox announced on Oct. 10 they would make available a limited quantity of tickets for potential World Series games at Fenway, there was a limit of four tickets per fan and the costs started at $125 for standing room and $155 for bleachers. Grandstand seats went for $250 and right field and pavilion box seats $310. On its website, there also initially had been elite postseason seats listed for $400.

As late as World Series Game 2, John Longo, originally from Southington, said he paid $500 per ticket off Craigslist for season-ticket holder seats with a $200 face value. Redsox.com listed those seats at $250.

For Game 6, you could not find a ticket outside Fenway for $500. There were some tickets sold in the $5,000 range and I saw a lot of bleacher seats available in the $1,000 range. You know how much Fenway standing room seats cost at the 1967 World Series between the Cardinals and Red Sox? Four bucks.

"I'm surprised how inexpensive they are," Jim Holzman, the CEO of Ace Ticket, referring to this year's Game 6, told USA Today. "I agree it's a fair amount of money, but it's $1,000 for a lifetime memory and there's no price tag that you can put on that."

Said, of course, by a man who wishes somebody paid $1,500 for that lifetime memory.